Well if worse comes to worse, England and any other country interested in organic AEW, might want to take a page from Brazil’s books!
For those not in the know: The Marinah do Brasilia (MdB- Brazilian Navy) have decided to bring their old Trackers out of storage, and equip them with a radar and turboprops (the later via Marsh Aviation, who also did the Argentinian Trackers). Thales has been contracted to install the radar and two mission consols in the fuselage.
Add to this, the MdB’s interest in using these planes in both the Tanker and COD roles as well and you start to see the MdB really making an effort- I mean if they don’t kill you with weapons, they’ll kill you with laughter!
India might want to relook at their old Alize’s I mean throw in a PT-6/67C and a Searwater radar and you have a decent AEW platform (if you go along the same lines! The Royal navy could also contend with this idea and bring back the AEW Gannets- how hard could it be?
I thought just for old times sakes that I’d include some pics of old AEW platforms just so that we could all remember where this role came from as we all know where it is going today :dev2:
The Grumman E-1 Tracer (aka Willy Fudd), note the odd shaped radome.
The Dassult Alize AEW (in it’s latter years with Marine National)
The Fairey Gannet AEW 3
The Grumman AD-4W Skyraider AEW Above American service, below British service
Where it all began- The Avenger AEW
As everyone here knows, I have been watching the development of the V-22 in an AEW/AWACS role for some time now, so please allow me to share what I have come across over the years.
Firstly: Stan hyd don’t worry about it mate, I too have posted many articles on here that have already been talked about, the problem is that the forum moves rather quickly as news pops up and todays current article soon finds it’s way down on page 22- you weren’t to know. Having said that this is actually a decent topic to talk about and I thank you for bringing it up again!
Grim901: I too can’t be bothered chasing all the way through pages of posts to find the right topic, especially if the topic has so many replies that it generally looses the original idea of what the person was asking in the first place.
Now, on to the original topic at hand…
From my understanding, the RN and the MoD were all for the Merlin being the next AEW bird for the fleet, this had a slightly higher ceiling than the Seaking AEWs 
who did have a major problem with radar horizons being far too short. The max ceiling a Seaking could attain was 10,000ft with a standard service ceiling of about 7,500- 8,200ft. The Merlin is only marginally better in this area but still no where near what a fixed wing can do.
Again the problem of pressurization comes into play here and this is what holds back the V-22. Originally I read that the V-22 fitted with a Triangular radar
was meant to be pressurized (Note the pic being in RN colours and further note the Tanker version at a lower altitude tanking an F-32). It now seems that this idea has fallen and the Searchwater equipped V-22 TOSS
is the preferred option, this mainly because BAE have a huge stake in the program. As mentioned above, the difference is that the original system allowed a higher ceiling due to the cabin being pressurised, the Searchwater system doesn’t because the radar has to retrieve into the cabin when not in use, preventing any damage to it! At most this system would allow a max level of 15,000ft for operation with normal missions being around 12,000ft.
The TOSS system allows for only 3x mission consols where the original system allowed up to five. Originally the V-22 was to have been intergrated with a control of UAV/UCAV facility similar to what the Wedgetail AWAC’s is getting, sadly with the TOSS system, this is no longer possible- call it cost cutting by the MoD or what ever, but this loss will bite deep into future intergration with fleet requirements.
Agreed that if there is a TOSS AEW aircraft, then there is no conversion to other roles- it’s easy for the penny watchers to envision such a system, but realities come into play and as mentioned above- you need dedicated systems! Perhaps what the three B’s are doing (Bell/Boeing/BAE) is getting a firm order before announcing that what is required is impossible and then the MoD will have to order more V-22’s to cover the requirements (purely supposition on my behalf).
As for the other two roles, it’s not hard to actually combine those, the palletised system could work but with only one drawback in the tanker role, space for fuel. Even with fuel bladders the amount of fuel able to be transported would be very small due to the small size of the cabin- this taking into account the motor reel and associated equipment needed for a tanker role. At best these tankers would be emergency top ups for returning F-35’s who are forced into long holding patterns or (if the CTOL option is taken up on the QE’s) for Bolters- planes that have to go around again and attempt to land on the carrier. The COD option would actually work in well with the Transport option and thus a combined order for COD/Transport/Tankers would make sence and give the bean counters some relief over the bungled AEW order.
So now the question becomes how many would be needed for the fleet? Accepting that both carriers would never be at sea at the same time (one in refit and the other on patrol), you basically need enough AEWs for one ship (this is how they work out an actual operational plan. So if we take into account all that we have read over the past decade (that being 8-13 V-22 would be needed), you factor in these operational procedures and you actually come out with about 4-5 airframes being needed for both CVFs in the AEW role. It’s actually the other three roles that would have more success in orders.
The V-22 could be used on HMS Ocean (as previously demonstrated by the USMC), and thus a Commando transport version becomes a factor, For the entire fleet of the RN/RFA, the V-22 orders could then add up to around 30 in total.
Now as to who else would buy the Ospreys, lets have a look!
Australia has for a long time been very interested in the program, I seriously doubt that the RAN would get any for the LPH’s that are coming on line soon, but both the AAC and RAAF have looked seriously at this plane as a replacement for the DHC-4 Caribou. Since the program took so long, other ideas and governments decided on various other solutions. But with this current government serious about transport on a tactical level, the V-22 could surface once again, but only for deployment on the LPH’s and thus numbers ordered would be limited to about 10 frames in the conventional role and none in the AEW role- not untill the F-35Bs were ordered at least and then possibly only three would be ordered 9though this is highly doubtful- the RAAF having the Wedgetail seems to opt the RAN out of any AEW purchase).
Spain is serious about ship to shore support and Italy is becoming serious about it as well, thus these two countries would be best off sharing an order (along similar lines as sharing an order for any F-35s that will be bought). To cover both fleets, I think around 30 could be a good number to share with the balance slightly in favour of Italy. As for AEW varients- probably around four to five each, this allows for one home based for training, one down for deep maintenance, one down for ship board maintenance and the other two flying.
Japan has long held drawings of it’s Hyuga class with V-22’s aboard- though I have some in my files somewhere, I can’t find any atm on the net to include here. Again Korea is in a similar boat here and thus a shared order would also make sense- but rivalries that go back many centuries would preclude any deal done here. I think Japan would order more of the V-22’s than Korea, so I’d guess Japan would buy about 30 and Korea would buy around 24. Japan is the one more interested here in AEW missions so I’d make a guess that they’d opt for about a dozen airframes and Korean would go for about eight.
France I doubt would buy any, they value their aero industry a little too much, even if they did finally decide on PA02. As for replacement of the E-2’s, I think that given the high level of interaction between the USN and MN, the French would actually go for E-2D’s rather than AEW V-22s.
India might be in the running to buy some- their increasing interest in western aircraft seems to hold an option here, but they’d only buy a few (at the most 12) just to work out a value for their service and possibly interact the design with a future plan with Russia. As for the AEW variant, this is more of a possibility especially if the AESA radar variant becomes the preferred choice, in this case I’d see more of these being bought by the IN with possibly 12 being the total number talked about.
Of course all this is just my interpretation of global events that I have seen and experienced. So don’t go shooting me down- I’m open to discussion not flaming!
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